Marks

by Dennis Damon

While rummaging around out in the barn I came across a pile of wooden hand-hewn buoys that Dad made years ago. I was looking for something I thought I had put there. Over time, the buoys must have covered the object of my quest. Carefully removing the buoys one at a time and holding each for a while as I examined his work and his carving, I finally removed enough layers to arrive at my intention.

The tub of trawl was intact. Well, the trawl was anyway. The wooden tub had lost its hoops and the staves were neatly spraddled out in sunburst fashion.

It was a tub of ‘fine’ gear. That is, it wasn’t built to catch halibut. Hake was probably the object of this endeavor. There were more hooks than one would find on a tub of halibut trawl. They were smaller and the gangions were shorter too. I didn’t count the hooks but I think there were about 300 attached to this bed-line. The hooks were rusty but I’m sure that a few strokes on each one with a flat file would bring the points quickly back to prominence. Come to think of it though, they were all “J” hooks and they might not even be legal to use now that the “circle” hooks have been invented.

I remember when we got the trawl. It was in my early teen years. Dad came home one day and said he knew a guy who had some trawl gear for sale. Did I want to go halves with him on a tub? I think the asking price for trawl and wooden tub was $30. I said I would, so we bought it.

Soon after Dad said, “We ought to set the trawl. I know a piece of sandy bottom where haddock come this time of year. Want to try?”

It was mid-June. I had just finished the school year so I was ready for an adventure.

He told me to go dig a mess of clams, shuck them out and we would use them for bait. “Why don’t we use some fresh herring?” I asked. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to dig some clams; I just thought haddock would like herring. He allowed that herring would work but that he thought clams would be the more attractive bait where we were going to set, and, this time of year haddock would prefer clams. Basic lesson of fishing and life; listen to people who have experience.

He showed me how to turn the trawl out of the tub and how to bait each hook. Then carefully and precisely he showed how I was to coil the bed-line back into the tub and lay each hook just so, ensuring that the whole mess wouldn’t tangle when we set it out. Baiting the 300 hooks and readying the trawl didn’t seem like work at all. There was no monotony, only hopeful anticipation of what each hook would catch. Fishermen’s Hope starts early and lasts forever.

At last the day of the set came. We cast off and headed out of the harbor to “Tom Shoal.” Dad claimed the haddock came into that area in the early summer to feed. They would soon be joined by schools of dogfish. The window of opportunity only opened a crack but he thought it might be now.

“Where is Tom Shoal?” I asked.

“Out in the Eastern Way. I’ll show you when we get there.” was his reply.

“How will you know when we’re there?” I continued.

“You’ll see.” was all he said.

I could see we were headed for Eastern Bunker’s Ledge monument. When we got in the vicinity he said, “See the eastern end of Sutton’s Island? It needs to be on the high point of Cranberry Island. That’s your first mark. Now line up the monument on Bunker’s Ledge with the tip of Schoodic. When you have those marks start running to the east’ard always keeping the monument on Schoodic. Don’t let the tide set you off. You steer and I’ll set the trawl.”

So it was. I steered the course. He flipped the clam-covered hooks out of the tub using a length of wood he fashioned for that purpose.

Each end of the trawl had an anchor attached so that the bed-line, to which all the hooks and their accompanying gangions were tied, would lay taut on the sandy gravel of Tom Shoal. Each end also had a line running from its anchor up to the water’s surface and a marker buoy.

We had no sooner emptied the tub of all its hooks and set the end anchor when Dad said to reverse course and run back to the beginning buoy. I was amazed. I said, “Are we going to start hauling already?”

“Yup” he said. “If the dogfish are here we don’t have time to waste.”

Back at the beginning buoy Dad started hauling in the trawl. The very first hook had a silvery haddock with that distinctive black line tracing down each side. I was beside myself with excitement. The next hook and the one after that and all I could see, looking over the side of the boat down as deep into the water, held a silver treasure. As the haddock were removed from the hooks I started dressing them and loading them into the barrels we had aboard. I also had to keep the boat on course so Dad could haul. It was busy work. I loved it!

All of a sudden I heard him mutter, “Oh, oh.”

“What?” I said.

“Those green-eyed devils have struck! Look at this.” he said. The haddock he was holding had a very neat bite taken from its tail section.

“How’d that happen?” I queried.

“Dogfish” was his response. “We’d better hurry to finish hauling this or we’ll have nothing but haddock heads left.”

Subsequent haddock came aboard with more and more of their bodies eaten away. We did catch some with only the heads left attached to the hook. And we started catching dogfish too. When one of them came up, rather than trying to remove the hook rather carefully, Dad would hold the gangion with his gloved hand and in a flinging motion slat the dogfish against the hull causing the hook to rip from the dogfish’s mouth and the fish to go back into the sea. It was during one of these extractions that it happened.

The weight of the dogfish flying through the air on its way to eternity stretched the nylon gangion. When the fish released the gangion with its accompanying hook, it snapped back and the hook embedded in the back of Dad’s hand. It went through his cotton glove and into his hand to such depth that the barb was not visible.

“Dennis, hand me that knife” was all he said. Then, “Better yet, see if you can cut this gangion close to the hook.” I did. From then on he was free from the trawl … but not the hook.

Still excited about our fishing efforts and not feeling any of his pain and discomfort, I suggested that he better get back to hauling. The look on his face stays with me. It was one mixed with, “the boy’s got the fishing fever” (good) and “for Chrissake, this hurts!” (bad).

He hauled in a dozen more hooks before he said, “This is starting to stiffen up. I guess we better call it a day and go in. I should see the doctor.”

With the tub only half hauled, his solution to free us from it was to cut the bed-line. He did that and didn’t bother to attach an anchor to the loose end. He claimed we could haul the rest of it by going to the other buoy. Indeed, we could and we did, but that doesn’t begin to explain the snarled up ball of trawl line and fish that we found the next day. There were fish tails, snouts, fins and bellies protruding from a ball of trawl easily four feet in diameter. What a mess!

The doctor had to cut the eye off the hook and push the pointed end with the barb through Dad’s hand to finally remove the thing. He was one tough man… Dad, not the doctor. He taught me marks and left his.